In other words, rather than including a templating language within your
templates which your designers must master and which could interfere
with previews in WYSWYG tools, CSS selectors in the template are tied to
your data structures or objects by a specification provided by the
programmer.
Workflow
The easiest way to use Template::Flute is to pass all necessary
parameters to the constructor and call the process method to generate
the HTML.
You can also break it down in separate steps:
1. Parse specification
Parse specification based on your specification format (e.g with
Template::Flute::Specification::XML or
Template::Flute::Specification::Scoped.).
$xml_spec = new Template::Flute::Specification::XML;
$spec = $xml_spec->parse(q{});
2. Parse template
Parse template with Template::Flute::HTML object.
$template = new Template::Flute::HTML;
$template->parse(q{
Cart Example

Name

Quantity

Price

Sample Book

$1

Total

$10

},
$spec);
3. Produce HTML output
$flute = new Template::Flute(template => $template,
iterators => {cart => $cart},
values => {cost => '84.94'});
$flute->process();
CONSTRUCTOR
new
Create a Template::Flute object with the following parameters:
specification_file
Specification file name.
specification_parser
Select specification parser. This can be either the full class name
like MyApp::Specification::Parser or the last part for classes
residing in the Template::Flute::Specification namespace.
specification
Specification object or specification as string.
template_file
HTML template file.
template
Template::Flute::HTML object or template as string.
database
Template::Flute::Database::Rose object.
filters
Hash reference of filter functions.
i18n
Template::Flute::I18N object.
iterators
Hash references of iterators.
values
Hash reference of values to be used by the process method.
auto_iterators
Builds iterators automatically from values.
METHODS
process [HASHREF]
Processes HTML template, manipulates the HTML tree based on the
specification, values and iterators.
Returns HTML output.
process_template
Processes HTML template and returns Template::Flute::HTML object.
filter ELEMENT VALUE
Runs the filter used by ELEMENT on VALUE and returns the result.
value NAME
Returns the value for NAME.
set_values HASHREF
Sets hash reference of values to be used by the process method. Same as
passing the hash reference as values argument to the constructor.
template
Returns HTML template object, see Template::Flute::HTML for details.
specification
Returns specification object, see Template::Flute::Specification for
details.
SPECIFICATION
The specification ties the elements in the HTML template to the data
(variables, lists, forms) which is added to the template.
The default format for the specification is XML implemented by the
Template::Flute::Specification::XML module. You can use the
Config::Scoped format implemented by
Template::Flute::Specification::Scoped module or write your own
specification parser class.
Possible elements in the specification are:
container
The first container is only shown in the output if the value
`billing_address' is set:
The second container is shown if the value `warnings' or the value
`errors' is set:
list
separator
Separator elements for list are added after any list item in the
output with the exception of the last one.
Example specification, HTML template and output:

KEY

|

FOO

|

BAR

param
value
Value elements are replaced with a single value present in the
values hash passed to the constructor of this class or later set
with the set_values method.
The following operations are supported for value elements:
hook
Insert HTML residing in value as subtree of the corresponding
HTML element. HTML will be parsed with XML::Twig.
toggle
Only shows corresponding HTML element if value is set.
Other attributes for value elements are:
include
Processes the template file named in this attribute. This
implies the hook operation.
input
filter
sort
i18n
ITERATORS
Template::Flute uses iterators to retrieve list elements and insert them
into the document tree. This abstraction relieves us from worrying about
where the data actually comes from. We basically just need an array of
hash references and an iterator class with a next and a count method.
For your convenience you can create an iterator from
Template::Flute::Iterator class very easily.
LISTS
Lists can be accessed after parsing the specification and the HTML
template through the HTML template object:
$flute->template->lists();
$flute->template->list('cart');
Only lists present in the specification and the HTML template can be
addressed in this way.
See Template::Flute::List for details about lists.
FORMS
Forms can be accessed after parsing the specification and the HTML
template through the HTML template object:
$flute->template->forms();
$flute->template->form('edit_content');
Only forms present in the specification and the HTML template can be
addressed in this way.
See Template::Flute::Form for details about lists.
FILTERS
Filters are used to change the display of value and param elements in
the resulting HTML output:
The following filters are included:
upper
Uppercase filter, see Template::Flute::Filter::Upper.
eol Filter preserving line breaks, see Template::Flute::Filter::Eol.
nobreak_single
Filter replacing missing text with no-break space, see
Template::Flute::Filter::NobreakSingle.
currency
Currency filter, see Template::Flute::Filter::Currency. Requires
Number::Format module.
date
Date filter, see Template::Flute::Filter::Date. Requires DateTime
and DateTime::Format::ISO8601 modules.
Filter classes are loaded at runtime for efficiency and to keep the
number of dependencies for Template::Flute as small as possible.
See above for prerequisites needed by the included filter classes.
INCLUDES
Files, especially components for web pages can be processed and included
through value elements with the include attribute:
The result replaces the inner HTML of the following `div' tag:

Sample content

AUTHOR
Stefan Hornburg (Racke),
BUGS
Please report any bugs or feature requests to `bug-template-flute at
rt.cpan.org', or through the web interface at
http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Template-Flute.
SUPPORT
You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.
perldoc Template::Flute
You can also look for information at:
* RT: CPAN's request tracker
http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Template-Flute
* AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation
http://annocpan.org/dist/Template-Flute
* CPAN Ratings
http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Template-Flute
* Search CPAN
http://search.cpan.org/dist/Template-Flute/
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to David Previous (bigpresh) for writing a much clearer
introduction for Template::Flute.
Thanks to Ton Verhagen for being a big supporter of my projects in all
aspects.
Thanks to Terrence Brannon for spotting a documentation mix-up.
HISTORY
Template::Flute was initially named Template::Zoom. I renamed the module
because of a request from Matt S. Trout, author of the HTML::Zoom
module.
LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2010-2011 Stefan Hornburg (Racke) .
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published
by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.
See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.